Nanotechnology

News Releases

Public Release: 10-Nov-2014Chicago Biomedical Consortium announces $3 million Infrastructure Initiative
The Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC) is announcing a $3 million Infrastructure Initiative to promote investment in high-impact, next-generation scientific equipment at its member universities. The Initiative aims to make modern and powerful tools available to the CBC research community at a time when federal grants for scientific infrastructure are scarce. The Infrastructure Initiative builds upon a previous agreement by giving each university $1 million to acquire novel, state-of-the-art scientific instrumentation to be shared under the Open Access Initiative.
Chicago Biomedical Consortium

Public Release: 10-Nov-2014 Nature MaterialsHeat transfer sets the noise floor for ultrasensitive electronics
A team of engineers and scientists has identified a source of electronic noise that could affect the functioning of instruments operating at very low temperatures, such as devices used in radio telescopes and advanced physics experiments.
The findings could have implications for the future design of transistors and other electronic components.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 10-Nov-2014 NatureGood vibrations give electrons excitations that rock an insulator to go metallic
A team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has made an important advancement in understanding a classic transition-metal oxide, vanadium dioxide, by quantifying the thermodynamic forces driving the transformation. The results are published in the Nov. 10 advance online issue of Nature.

Public Release: 10-Nov-2014 Nature NanotechnologyA billion holes can make a battery
Researchers at the University of Maryland have invented a single tiny structure that includes all the components of a battery that they say could bring about the ultimate miniaturization of energy storage components.
US Department of Energy

Public Release: 10-Nov-2014 Nature NanotechnologyNew electron spin secrets revealed
Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the University of Cambridge have demonstrated that it is possible to directly generate an electric current in a magnetic material by rotating its magnetization. The findings reveal a novel link between magnetism and electricity, and may have applications in electronics.

Public Release: 10-Nov-2014 Nature MaterialsNoise in a microwave amplifier is limited by quantum particles of heat
As part of an international collaboration, scientists at Chalmers University of Technology have demonstrated how noise in a microwave amplifier is limited by self-heating at very low temperatures. The results will be published in the prestigious journal Nature Materials. The findings can be of importance for future discoveries in many areas of science such as quantum computers and radio astronomy.
The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems

Public Release: 10-Nov-2014 Nature PhysicsLighter, cheaper radio wave device could transform telecommunications
Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have achieved a milestone in modern wireless and cellular telecommunications, creating a radically smaller, more efficient radio wave circulator that could be used in cellphones and other wireless devices. The new circulator has the potential to double the useful bandwidth in wireless communications and transform the telecommunications industry, making communications faster and less expensive in a wide array of products.
Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Air Force Office of Scientific Research

Public Release: 7-Nov-2014 Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesCCNY-led discovery may help breast cancer treatment
Researchers led by Dr. Debra Auguste, associate professor, biomedical engineering, in the Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York, have identified a molecule that could lead to developing treatment for one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer.
National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 6-Nov-2014 Beilstein Journal of NanotechnologyManipulating complex molecules by hand
Jülich scientists have developed a new control technique for scanning probe microscopes that enables the user to manipulate large single molecules interactively using their hands. Until now, only simple and inflexibly-programmed movements were possible. To test their method, the researchers 'stencilled' a word into a molecular monolayer by removing 47 molecules. The process opens up new possibilities for the construction of molecular transistors and other nanocomponents.

Public Release: 6-Nov-2014 Angewandte ChemieSorting bloodborne cancer cells to better predict spread of disease
For most cancer patients, primary tumors are often not the most deadly. Instead, it is the metastatic tumors -- tumors that spread from their original location to other parts of the body -- that are the cause of most cancer deaths. Researchers at the University of Toronto have developed a diagnostic tool to investigate traveling cancer cells and improve health outcomes, published in the leading Chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie.

Public Release: 5-Nov-2014 Journal of Power SourcesQUT leading the charge for panel-powered car
A car powered by its own body panels could soon be driving on our roads after a breakthrough in nanotechnology research by a Queensland University of Technology team.
Researchers have developed lightweight 'supercapacitors' that can be combined with regular batteries to dramatically boost the power of an electric car.

Public Release: 5-Nov-2014 Nano LettersGolden approach to high-speed DNA reading
Berkeley researchers have created the world's first graphene nanopores that feature integrated optical antennas. The antennas open the door to high-speed optical nanopore sequencing of DNA.
DOE/Office of Science

Public Release: 5-Nov-2014 Nature CommunicationsLive images from the nano-cosmos
Using ultrabright X-rays, researchers have observed in real-time how football-shaped carbon molecules arrange themselves into ultra-smooth layers. Together with theoretical simulations, the investigation reveals the fundamentals of this growth process for the first time in detail, as the team reports in the scientific journal Nature Communications. This knowledge will eventually enable scientists to tailor nanostructures for certain applications from these carbon molecules, which play an increasing role in the promising field of plastic electronics.

Public Release: 4-Nov-2014 Advanced MaterialsRice chemists gain edge in next-gen energy
Rice University scientists create a flexible film with the ability to catalyze the production of hydrogen or be used for energy storage.
Peter M. and Ruth L. Nicholas Postdoctoral Fellowship of Rice's Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Air Force Office of Scientific Research

Public Release: 4-Nov-2014 Advanced MaterialsBetter bomb-sniffing technology
University of Utah engineers have developed a new type of carbon nanotube material for handheld sensors that will be quicker and better at sniffing out explosives, deadly gases and illegal drugs.
US Department of Homeland Security, US Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, NASA

Public Release: 3-Nov-2014 Nature NanotechnologyOutsmarting thermodynamics in self-assembly of nanostructures
Berkeley Lab researchers have achieved symmetry-breaking in a bulk metamaterial solution for the first time, a critical step game toward achieving new and exciting properties in metamaterials.
National Science Foundation, DOE/Office of Science

Public Release: 3-Nov-2014 European Physical Journal DPlasma: Casimir and Yukawa mesons
A new theoretical work establishes a long-sought-after connection between nuclear particles and electromagnetic theories. Its findings, published in EPJ D, suggest that there is an equivalence between generalised Casimir forces and those that are referred to as weak nuclear interactions between protons and neutrons. The Casimir forces are due to the quantisation of electromagnetic fluctuations in vacuum, while the weak nuclear interactions are mediated by subatomic scale particles, originally called mesons by Yukawa.

Public Release: 2-Nov-2014 Nature PhotonicsTwo photons strongly coupled by glass fiber
Usually, light waves do not interact with each other. Coupling of photons with other photons is only possible with the help of special materials and very intense light. Scientists in Vienna have now created the strongest possible coupling of only two photons -- an important achievement for quantum optics.

Public Release: 31-Oct-2014NTU Singapore lights up photonics research with $100 million institute
The next generation ultra-fast Internet or ground-breaking electronic circuits powered by light instead of electricity could very well be built on research done at Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore). NTU Singapore is partnering the University of Southampton, UK to set up the new institute.

Public Release: 31-Oct-2014 Journal of Synchrotron RadiationA new generation of storage -- ring
The MAX IV facility, currently under construction in Lund, Sweden, is the first of a new generation of storage-ring-based synchrotron light sources which employ a multibend achromat lattice to reach emittances in the few hundred pm rad range in a circumference of a few hundred meters.

Public Release: 30-Oct-2014 ScienceLord of the microrings
Berkeley Lab researchers report a significant breakthrough in laser technology with the development of a unique microring laser cavity that can produce single-mode lasing on demand. This advance holds ramifications for a wide range of optoelectronic applications including metrology and interferometry, data storage and communications, and high-resolution spectroscopy.
Office of Naval Research

Public Release: 30-Oct-2014 Physical Review LettersBiology meets geometry
Architecture imitates life, at least when it comes to those spiral ramps in multistory parking garages. Stacked and connecting parallel levels, the ramps are replications of helical structures found in a ubiquitous membrane structure in the cells of the body.